HP CEO rumored to pronounce fate of webOS on Friday

After months of deliberation, Hewlett Packard's new CEO Meg Whitman is rumored to announce the PC maker's plans for webOS on Friday.

Whitman is set to hold an all-hands meeting on Friday at 10:30 AM Pacific to provide the webOS Global Business Unit with her final decision on what to do with the mobile platform, PreCentral claims.

HP originally pointed to webOS as a major reason for its $1.2 billion purchase of Palm last April, but, the result of that partnership, the TouchPad tablet, ended up being a massive failure, costing the company $100 million because of unsold inventory.

Former CEO Léo Apotheker subsequently stunned investors in August when he announced a dramatic business plan that would spin off its PC business and abruptly bring an end to webOS development. After the pronouncement sent HP's stock into a free fall, Apotheker was ousted, with Whitman appointed in his stead.

Whitman, who was reportedly "brought to tears" when she was briefed on Apotheker's strategy, announced in late October plans to hold on to HP's Personal Systems Group after assigning 18 different teams to evaluate the group.

The executive said at the end of November that a decision would come within two weeks time, noting that 600 of HP's employees were "in limbo" waiting for an answer. Tipsters report that webOS team members don't expect "anything good" from the announcement.

One source within the webOS group told AppleInsider in October that HP has likely destroyed any prospects for keeping webOS as an internal project. "HP has made many, many enemies in angry Palm employees and fans," the insider said. "HP's credibility with developers, business partners, retailers and so on is shot, thanks to [management's incompetence]. I don't think developers would listen to us unless we got a fresh start as part of another company."

Rumors have suggested that HP has considered selling webOS to a range of companies, including Oracle. Both Samsung and HTC have reportedly looked into bidding for the OS.

It served it's purpose. It was a nice OS in it's day. It's a remnant of the Palm company. Bye bye.

the sad part is, its better than Android (from my experiences trying both of them)

maybe Google should buy it and move Android R&D to the Palm OS?

also they make sure that the money that Steve Job's brilliance collected for Apple be saved for better things than having to kill Android! (like making an iPad this becomes invisible when turned on its side! (my little joke about obsession with making everything thin, which is very nice, but the MBA/iPad 2 is the limit for sanity reasons, at least that's what i believe))

Or Apple could buy it, the OS has some stuff that could make iOS better (Though not worth price probably)

PC means personal computer.

i have processing issues, mostly trying to get my ideas into speech and text.

If tablets are the future, and webOS eventually finds its footing in the marketplace after HP sells it off, HP will be kicking themselves.

Or if they try to salvage WebOS for smartphones or tablets and fail instead of selling it off they'll be kicking themselves.

Personally, with nothing but a rudimentary, yet modern OS, no viable HW designs, and no feasible ecosystem I think the only way to salvage it would be to sell it. And that's even before you consider Apple's possession here. If Apple can get their HiDPI iPad with feasible performance, price and battery usage out early next year I think it's done deal for the iPad being an iPod like dominance. Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet can have their low-end whatever, but it will be the iPad market, not the tablet market moving forward.

It's like taking insurance when the dealing is showing and Ace in Blackjack. In this case it's the only way not lose everything.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

Sad to see an interesting technology condemned to death by stupid executives. it is probably too late, as the most talented developers have probably jumped out of the boat. Again, it is impossible not to have in mind the NextStep episode : what this development team probably misses is a leader capable of transforming their ideas into money, through a profitable deal ...

At a news conference today, HP CEO Meg Whitman announced: "After extensive research involving 27 separate teams of highly qualified evaluators, we have decided that HP will no longer make computers. Henceforth, HP will make ice cream. We have, however, decided to hang on to WebOS for possible use in frozen yogurt dispensers."

Meg got hired to sort HP out and now it looks as if "web OH SH**" is dead. All I can say is that Meg ain't s***!
She is a super star manager no doubt. She did wonders at fledgling ebay but HP isn't a new start up. It is a legacy company. A big, fat, 500 pound, diabetic orangutang!
All she'll do is make the products look pretty like a Nicki Manaj doll.
And where is Jon "I wish I were Steve Jobs" Rubinstein? Probably hauling a** down the street with his pride safely tucked into a jansport backpack.
SAY LA VEEEE!

He needs fired. Here, HP had something that had a following, and they could do something with it to compete against iOS and Android. But, they bobbled it, and they simply didn't really get behind the product like they should have. HP has lost their direction, and the CEO needs to go.

It served it's purpose. It was a nice OS in it's day. It's a remnant of the Palm company. Bye bye.

It was the critical mistake that tanked the Palm company...

Quote:

Originally Posted by nicolbolas

the sad part is, its better than Android (from my experiences trying both of them)

Agreed. I still use and love my Palm m515, running PalmOS 4.1. Yes, it's a low-resolution screen, with a stylus and not terribly fast, but it works well, does everything I need and almost never crashes. (I am dreading the day when it stops working...)

WebOS, while possibly a nice system (I don't know, I didn't use it) ended up killing the company because they flushed their entire installed base of customers down the toilet. It's just like what would happen if Microsoft decided to release a Windows 8 that was completely incompatible with current PC hardware and with all previous Windows apps. Faced with the knowledge that there's no way to upgrade without breaking everything, a huge percentage of their customers would switch to other platforms.

HP thought they could buy this mess and make it work. They thought wrong. The whole Palm acquisition was a complete and utter waste of money. Unless it was their intent to simply kill a competitor, of course.

Or if they try to salvage WebOS for smartphones or tablets and fail instead of selling it off they'll be kicking themselves.

Personally, with nothing but a rudimentary, yet modern OS, no viable HW designs, and no feasible ecosystem I think the only way to salvage it would be to sell it. And that's even before you consider Apple's possession here. If Apple can get their HiDPI iPad with feasible performance, price and battery usage out early next year I think it's done deal for the iPad being an iPod like dominance. Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet can have their low-end whatever, but it will be the iPad market, not the tablet market moving forward.

It's like taking insurance when the dealing is showing and Ace in Blackjack. In this case it's the only way not lose everything.

I believe the best way to save WebOS is to sell it and all IP related to it to a Chinese company, maybe Lenovo or Huawei, or a consortium of Chinese companies. They would love to have something to call their own, develop its ecosystem with all kind of weird incarnations. Whether it flood back to US would be another question.

ney that Steve Job's brilliance collected for Apple be saved for better things than having to kill Android!

LIkely effect because what Steve is trying to kill is IP theft by Android which won't change unless Google totally changes the Android UI and locks it in for all OEMs. But since they adapted the style they did because of how successful it was for Apple, it's unlikely they will change unless the courts demand it.

Quote:

Or Apple could buy it, the OS has some stuff that could make iOS better (Though not worth price probably)

The only reason Apple might buy it is if there are some patents attached. Because anything in it that happens to be better they would have to rewrite anyway because it's not in the right code for iOS, so why buy something they have to redo anyway

He needs fired. Here, HP had something that had a following, and they could do something with it to compete against iOS and Android. But, they bobbled it, and they simply didn't really get behind the product like they should have. HP has lost their direction, and the CEO needs to go.

Actually, in my humble idiotic layman opinion, the CEO, whoever he/she is, needs to NOT go. Whatever his decisions, even if it ultimately kills the company on one-bet-too-much, he should have support of the board.

Let's take the example of an idiot guy who thought Pixar could make movies, Apple could sell MP3 players and (gasp) phones and tablets. Imagine if after six months, the board fired that idiot due to all the good advice of pundits and armchair specialists behind their computers?

HP has "lost their direction" because the investors can't seem to be able to hire a good CEO and let him make the right decisions without firing him. Remember, direction IS the CEO.

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.